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Conference highlights Net poker's popularity
Published: 2005-07-07
Conference highlights Net poker's popularity
By Liz Benston
LAS VEGAS SUN
Flanked by hostesses in slinky black dresses and introduced with blaring rock music, a group of marketing experts and attorneys gathered at a Las Vegas casino to advise online poker operators how to promote a business that both the state and federal government consider to be illegal.
Several hundred people filled a giant ballroom at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center for a conference hosted by Bodog.com, one of the largest sports betting sites on the Internet that recently introduced an online poker room to capitalize on the poker boom.
The irony of the situation is not lost on Bodog.com Chief Executive Calvin Ayre.
"The progressive casinos ... acknowledge the industry for what it is," said Ayre, a Canadian whose site is based in Costa Rica. "We are a large feeder system for the casinos and Las Vegas is the center of this space."
It's no accident that the conference kicked off the day before the start of the championship event of the World Series of Poker, the world's largest poker tournament. By about noon today, 2,000 hopefuls will have faced off against one another in the so-called Super Bowl of poker at the Rio convention center.
Up to 6,000 players have so far registered to enter the event and have been divided into three groups over three start days to fit into the Rio's ballroom, where 200 poker tables await. The tournament can accommodate up to 200 extra people per day if players get knocked out of the early rounds, which means the tournament would be sold out at 6,600 people.
The top prize will be about $7 million, with several runner-ups assured a prize of at least $1 million.
Since a novice named Chris Moneymaker leveraged a $40 online buy-in to win the World Series of Poker in 2003, Internet casinos have played a major role in the tournament. In the months leading up to the World Series of Poker, online casinos have hosted satellite tourneys that allow players to win their $10,000 buy-in to the WSOP's final event. PokerStars.com, where Moneymaker learned the ropes of poker and where he is now a paid host, will be feeding more than 950 players to the tournament this year.
Jeff Shulman, a poker player and publisher of Card Player magazine in Las Vegas, estimates that as many as a third of the entrants to the final tournament will have won or otherwise obtained their seats through online poker sites such as Bodog.com.
"The casinos know how important (online sites) are," said Shulman, who will be playing in the final tournament. "If you go to Bellagio you've got 40 people waiting for every game."
Web casinos have become a "farm league to bring players into the casinos for the first time," he said. "And they're winning ... That's the beautiful thing about poker."
The Bodog.com event began as an insider party for sports handicappers three years ago and has morphed into the country's most public promotional event for the burgeoning online gambling industry.
Last night, some 800 people gathered for an afterparty at the Palms, which Ayre calls another one of Las Vegas' few "progressive" casinos.
Ayre's persona is an anomaly in an industry that is largely made up of anonymous officers and investors that avoid the spotlight. The federal government's ban has driven Internet operators offshore, where Web gambling has ballooned into an $12 billion business with profit surpassing the biggest Las Vegas casinos.
Last month investors and regulators took notice when the owner of the world's largest online poker site, PartyPoker.com, went public in London in a $9 billion offering, setting the stage for other offerings and interest from major investment banks.
Of the industry's illegal status in Nevada, Ayre doesn't blink.
"We don't block bets from Nevada but we don't go out of our way to tap people in Nevada," he said. "We don't do business in Nevada. And we're not going to police jurisdictions all over the world. That's not our responsibility."
Nevada is one of only a handful of states that specifically prohibit Internet gambling, which regulators have interpreted to include Internet poker. While the state has previously expressed interest in legalizing Internet gambling, it stands by the ban so as not to run afoul of the U.S. Department of Justice, which has issued an opinion that Internet gambling is illegal and has threatened legal action against U.S. media companies that have accepted Internet gambling ads. The federal government is largely basing its prohibition on the 1961 Wire Act, a law intended to combat organized crime that bans cross-border wire communications relating to wagers on a "sporting event or contest."
Ayre also isn't afraid of the feds, calling the Department of Justice's legal position flimsy. The federal government has so far avoided a lawsuit against an Internet poker room because of the risk of losing in court, he said.
Last year the U.S. Attorney in St. Louis sent out several cease and desist letters to media companies saying they were "aiding and abetting" Internet gambling, a criminal enterprise. More recently, Esquire pulled ads from Bodog.com after the feds warned the magazine against running ads from online gambling sites.
Ayre said the crackdown has actually helped his business by weeding out some of the advertising clutter.
"We're more nimble than most of our competitors," he said. "You can't stop the Internet."
Web casinos are using a host of techniques to skirt the law and appear to be successfully avoiding prosecution.
That includes launching play-for-free sites using ".net" suffixes instead of their real-money casino counterparts, which use the ".com" moniker. Many major online casinos now advertise their free play dot.net sites to placate media companies even though those sites are designed to teach players in preparation for real money games. Free sites often link to registrations for online casinos. In some cases, Internet casinos are running variations of "void where prohibited" disclaimers to avoid lawsuits in specific jurisdictions.
Attorneys representing online casinos dismissed some of the federal government's warnings against media companies promoting Internet gambling.
To win a court judgment, the government would have to prove that a media company actively promoted and "substantially contributed" to an Internet gambling business, attorney John Ford said at the conference. While running advertising doesn't present much risk, a company that somehow shares revenue with an Internet casino might run into trouble, he said.
Allyn Jaffrey Shulman, an attorney for Card Player and the wife of the magazine's owner, Barry Shulman, said the government is using an outdated and unproven law to ban Internet gambling.
If the feds threaten Card Player, the magazine would likely fight back with a lawsuit, she said.
"There's no specific prohibition of online gambling, there's just posturing from the federal government," she said.
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Players Network's 'WORLD SERIES OF POKER(R) LIFESTYLE SHOW' Special Programming to Reach 100 Million Potential Viewers Worldwide
Published: 2005-07-06
 Players Network's 'WORLD SERIES OF POKER(R) LIFESTYLE SHOW' Special Programming to Reach 100 Million Potential Viewers Worldwide
Wednesday July 6, 6:00 am ET
Marty Corwin, Emmy-Award Winning Director to Direct the Broadcasts Vegas Media Group to Provide Production Services First-Ever Live Programming Begins Today
LAS VEGAS, July 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The world's leading media company focused on gaming lifestyle programming, Players Network (OTC Bulletin Board: PNTV - News) announced today that its lineup of special programs will be digitally broadcast from the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino and available On Demand to a worldwide audience of 100 million broadband and digital media viewing subscribers, beginning today, through July 9th. In addition, Emmy-award winning director Marty Corwin has been hired as Director of Original Programming for the company's productions during the "WORLD SERIES OF POKERŪ LIFESTYLE SHOW." Corwin joins Executive Producers Michael Berk and Mark Bradley who will oversee the company's programming from the Show, as announced last Friday. Vegas Media Group, under the leadership of Ed Winfield, will provide production services.
Using more than a dozen cameras and state-of-the-art technology to film this unprecedented poker lifestyle live event 6 hours a day four 4 days, Players Network's production is being scheduled like a movie shoot. Multiple camera crews with segment producers will capture the spontaneity of the intense poker environment, while additional cameras will film the scheduled programs taking place on the main stage each day. Among the scheduled programs, Players Network will film three episodes of "Doyle's Room" starring poker legend Doyle Brunson (who just won his tenth gold bracelet on July 1st) talking about poker, gambling and life with other poker legends and the next generation of young guns. Other talk shows will be hosted by sports and gambling experts Wayne Allyn Root, Larry Grossman, and poker author Nolan Dalla. Players Network is also producing the first "Poker Dealers Olympics," as well as round-table poker strategy sessions with the Pros, and a Tournament featuring ShuffleMaster's 3-Card Poker.
On Friday, July 8, Players Network will present "The Player" Awards Show bestowing awards in 10 Poker categories, including the Lifetime Achievement Award to Doyle Brunson. "The Player" glass awards have been designed by renowned Las Vegas sculptor Tony Milici.
"This is an incredible, first-time opportunity to bring the most famous poker players in the world -- and some of the legends of poker -- and their stories to a global audience," commented Michael Berk, President of Programming, Players Network and Co-Executive Producer of the broadcasts. "In four days, Players Network will provide a wide variety of programming that goes way beyond just poker "shows" now available on nearly a dozen networks."
Marty Corwin is a top-tier entertainment and sports television director and producer whose specials and PayPerView events have aired on Showtime, HBO, ESPN, ABC, NBC, CBS. He spent 10 years producing for World Championship Boxing, the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball. As VP and Director of Television for Don King Productions, Mr. Corwin was responsible for 5 of the top 10 PayPerView events of all time including Tyson vs. Holyfield I and II.
The "On Demand" universe in the US alone includes 15 million Video On Demand households, 70 million cellphone/PCS subscribers and 30 million subscribers with broadband access in the United States, 120 million users worldwide. In the US, broadband is projected to double to 60 million by 2008. Broadband includes individuals with cable modems, DSL, T1 lines, wireless devices, satellite broadband, first mile fiber and powerline broadband.
About Players Network
Players Network is the leading gaming industry media company that produces television and video programming on gaming-centric entertainment, information and instruction via hotel casino private networks, home video and DVD distribution and, beginning July 6th, on its broadband network at www.playersnetwork.com. The company has a 10-year history of providing consumers with gaming content and businesses with strategic partner services in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and the greater US gaming community.
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